Richelle Mead - Last Sacrifice

A few minutes of silence fell. "You didn't ask what happened to me," I pointed out, a little miffed.

"Don't need to. You're here. That's what counts."

"I got in a fight."

"I can tell. Your sleeve is ripped."

I glanced down. Yup, ripped. I'd also lost the hat in my mad dash. No big loss. "Don't you want to know anything about the fight?"

His eyes stayed on the road ahead of us. "I already know. You took down your enemy. You did it fast, and you did it well. Because you're just that good."

I pondered his words for a moment. They were matter-of-fact, all business . . . and yet, his statement brought a tiny smile to my lips. "Okay. So what now, General? Don't you think they'll scan reports of stolen cars and get our license plate number?"

"Likely. But by then, we'll have a new car—one they won't have any clue about."

I frowned. "How are you pulling that off?"

"We're meeting someone in a few hours."

"Damn it. I really hate being the last one to know about everything."

‘A few hours' put us in Roanoke, Virginia. Most of our drive had passed uneventfully up until that point. But as the city came into view, I noticed Dimitri watching the exit signs until he found the one he wanted. Turning off the interstate, he continued checking for a tail and found none. We reached another commerce-filled road, and he drove to a McDonald's that stood out clearly from the rest of the businesses.

"I don't suppose," I said, "that this is a food break?"

"This," he responded, "is where we catch our next ride."

He drove around the restaurant's parking lot, his eyes scanning for something, though I didn't initially know what. I spotted it a fraction of a second before he did. In the far corner of the lot, I saw a woman leaning against a tan SUV, her back to us. I couldn't see much of her except that she wore a dark shirt and had tousled blond hair that almost touched her shoulders.

Dimitri pulled into the spot next to her vehicle, and I was out of ours the second he hit the brake. I recognized her before she even turned around.

"Sydney?" The name came out as a question, though I knew for sure it was her.

Her head turned, and I saw a familiar face—a human face—with brown eyes that could turn amber in the sun and a faint gold tattoo on her cheek.

"Hey, Rose," she said, a rueful smile playing on her lips. She held up a McDonald's bag. "Figured you'd be hungry."

REALLY, WHEN YOU THOUGHT ABOUT it, Sydney showing up wasn't much weirder than half the other stuff that seemed to happen to me on a regular basis. Sydney was an Alchemist, one I'd met in Russia when trying to find and kill Dimitri. She was my age and had hated being assigned over there, though I'd certainly appreciated her aid. As Dimitri had noted earlier, the Alchemists would want to help the Moroi find and capture me. Yet, judging from the tension radiating off both her and Dimitri in the car, it became obvious that she was assisting in this escape.

With great effort, I pushed my questions to the side for the time being. We were still fugitives, still undoubtedly being pursued. Sydney's car was a brand new Honda CR-V with Louisiana plates and a rental sticker.

"What the hell?" I asked. "Is this daring escape being sponsored by Honda?" When this got no response, I went to the next obvious question. "Are we going to New Orleans?" That was Sydney's new post. Sightseeing was the last thing on my mind at the moment, but if you had to run away, you might as well run somewhere good.

"No," she said, backing out of the spot. "We're going to West Virginia."

I looked sharply at Dimitri, who sat in the backseat, in the hopes that he would deny this. He didn't.

"I assume by ‘West Virginia,' you actually mean ‘Hawaii,'" I said. "Or some place equally exciting."

"Honestly, I think you're better off avoiding excitement right now," Sydney pointed out. The car's GPS device directed her to her next turn, leading us back toward I-81. She frowned slightly. "And West Virginia's actually really pretty."

I remembered that she was from Utah and probably didn't know any better. Having long since given up on any control in this escape plot, I moved on to the next obvious set of questions.

"Why are you helping us?"

I had a feeling Sydney was grimacing in the dark. "Why do you think?"

"Abe."

She sighed. "I'm really starting to wonder if New Orleans was worth it."

I'd recently learned that Abe—with that inexplicable, far-reaching influence of his—had been responsible for getting her out of Russia. How he'd done it, I didn't know. What I did know was that it had left Sydney in open-ended debt to him, one he kept using to get favors. Sometimes, I wondered if there was more to the deal than just a job transfer, like maybe he'd done something else that neither had told me about. Regardless, I started to chastise her again that she should have expected this for making a deal with the devil, but I soon reconsidered. With a bunch of guardians in pursuit, it probably wasn't a smart idea to tease someone helping me. I asked a different question.

"Okay. So why are we going to West Virginia?"

Sydney opened her mouth to respond, but Dimitri interrupted her. "Not yet."

I turned around again and shot him a glare. "I am so sick of this! We've been on the run for six hours now, and I still don't know all the details. I get that we're staying away from the guardians, but are we seriously going to West Virginia? Are we going to make some cabin our base of operation? Like, one on the side of a mountain that doesn't have plumbing?"

Sydney gave me one of her trademark exasperated sighs. "Do you actually know anything about West Virginia?"

I didn't like her and Dimitri teaming up to keep me in the dark. Of course, with Sydney, her reticence could be from any number of things. It could still be Abe's orders. Or maybe she just didn't want to talk to me. Since most Alchemists considered dhampirs and vampires the spawn of hell, they didn't usually get too friendly with us. Spending time with me in Siberia had altered her views a little. I hoped. Sometimes I got the vibe she just wasn't that social of a person to begin with.

"You know we've been set up, right?" I asked her. "We didn't really do anything. They say I killed the queen, but—"

"I know," Sydney interrupted. "I've heard all about it. All the Alchemists know about it. You two are at the top of our most wanted list." She attempted a businesslike tone but couldn't entirely hide her uneasiness. I had a feeling Dimitri made her more nervous than I did, which was understandable since he made some of our own people nervous too.

"I didn't do it," I insisted. Somehow, it was important that she know that.

Sydney didn't acknowledge my comment. Instead, she said, "You should eat. Your food's getting cold. We've got a little over three hours to go and won't be stopping except for gas."

I recognized the finality in her voice, as well as the logic. She didn't want to talk anymore. Inside the bag, I found two giant orders of fries, and three cheeseburgers. She apparently still knew me pretty well. It took all of my restraint to keep from stuffing fries into my mouth then and there. Instead, I offered a cheeseburger to Dimitri.

"You want one? Gotta keep up your strength."

He hesitated several seconds before taking it. He seemed to regard it with a kind of wonder, and it hit me that eating food was still a new thing for him after these last few months. Strigoi only subsisted on blood. I handed him a couple of fries too and then turned back around to devour the rest. I didn't bother offering any to Sydney. She was notorious for her lack of appetite, and besides, I figured she would have eaten already if she'd wanted to while waiting for us.